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Semantic representation and storage. How do we store what we know about the world?. What is semantic memory?. People know a lot of stuff. Think of everything you know about cars. It’s more than you think. How is this stuff organized?. Semantic Networks. Decision Networks.
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Semantic representation and storage How do we store what we know about the world?
What is semantic memory? • People know a lot of stuff. • Think of everything you know about cars. It’s more than you think. • How is this stuff organized?
Unitary Content Hypothesis • Information storage is based on categories. • All information about a category is stored in one place, and is accessible by every sensory modality.
Evidence for the UCH • Fits with our intuitions about the hierarchy of semantic categories. • Lots of cognitive effects (priming, recognition, memory) are influence by category-based semantic relationships • Certain brain-damaged patients show category-specific deficits, where they are unable to identify objects from particular categories.
Multiple Semantics Hypothesis • Semantic information is stored by sensory modality rather than category. • All information about a given category is strongly linked, but direct access to a given piece of information is only possible through that modality.
Evidence for the MSH • The rest of the cognitive system organizes its processing based on sensory modality. Why wouldn’t the semantic system? • Attention research shows that there is significant priming based on sensory modality. • There exist brain-damaged patients with modality-specific deficits of semantic processing.
The Sensory-Functional Hypothesis • Category-specific deficits are not very fine-grained. You won’t have a deficit for just dogs, but for all living things. • Maybe this is due not to category effects, but to how information is being represented. • Natural objects - more visual respresentation • Man-made objects - more functional representation